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An academic journal or scholarly journal is a
periodical publication A periodical literature (also called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar example is a newspaper, but a magazine or a journal are also examples ...
in which
scholarship A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need. Scholarsh ...
relating to a particular
academic discipline An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...
is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and discussion of
research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...
. They nearly-universally require
peer-review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
or other scrutiny from contemporaries competent and established in their respective fields. Content typically takes the form of articles presenting
original research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...
,
review article A review article is an article that summarizes the current state of understanding on a topic within a certain discipline. A review article is generally considered a secondary source since it may analyze and discuss the method and conclusions i ...
s, or
book reviews __NOTOC__ A book review is a form of literary criticism in which a book is merely described (summary review) or analyzed based on content, style, and merit. A book review may be a primary source, opinion piece, summary review or scholarly revie ...
. The purpose of an academic journal, according to
Henry Oldenburg Henry Oldenburg (also Henry Oldenbourg) FRS (c. 1618 as Heinrich Oldenburg – 5 September 1677), was a German theologian, diplomat, and natural philosopher, known as one of the creators of modern scientific peer review. He was one of the for ...
(the first editor of ''
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society'' is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society. In its earliest days, it was a private venture of the Royal Society's secretary. It was established in 1665, making it the first journa ...
''), is to give researchers a venue to "impart their knowledge to one another, and contribute what they can to the Grand design of improving natural knowledge, and perfecting all Philosophical Arts, and Sciences." The term ''academic journal'' applies to scholarly publications in all fields; this article discusses the aspects common to all academic field journals.
Scientific journal In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Content Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such as s ...
s and journals of the
quantitative Quantitative may refer to: * Quantitative research, scientific investigation of quantitative properties * Quantitative analysis (disambiguation) * Quantitative verse, a metrical system in poetry * Statistics, also known as quantitative analysis ...
social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soci ...
vary in form and function from journals of the
humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...
and qualitative social sciences; their specific aspects are separately discussed. The first academic journal was ''
Journal des sçavans The ''Journal des sçavans'' (later renamed ''Journal des savans'' and then ''Journal des savants,'' lit. ''Journal of the Learned''), established by Denis de Sallo, is the earliest academic journal published in Europe. It is thought to be the ear ...
'' (January 1665), followed soon after by ''
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society'' is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society. In its earliest days, it was a private venture of the Royal Society's secretary. It was established in 1665, making it the first journa ...
'' (March 1665), and ''
Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences ''Mémoires'' (''Memories'') is an artist's book made by the French social critic Guy Debord in collaboration with the Danish artist Asger Jorn. Its last page mentions that it was printed in 1959, however, it was printed in December 1958. This p ...
'' (1666). The first fully
peer-review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
ed journal was ''Medical Essays and Observations'' (1733).


History

The idea of a published journal with the purpose of "
etting Etting (; ; Lorraine Franconian: ''Ettinge'') is a commune in the Moselle department of the Grand Est administrative region in north-eastern France. The village belongs to the Pays de Bitche. See also * Communes of the Moselle department The ...
people know what is happening in the
Republic of Letters The Republic of Letters (''Respublica literaria'') is the long-distance intellectual community in the late 17th and 18th centuries in Europe and the Americas. It fostered communication among the intellectuals of the Age of Enlightenment, or ''phil ...
" was first conceived by
François Eudes de Mézeray François Eudes de Mézeray (1610 – 10 July 1683) was a French historian. Mézeray was born at Ri near Argentan, where his father was a surgeon. He had two brothers, one of whom, Jean-Eudes, was the founder of the order of the Eudists. Fr ...
in 1663. A publication titled ''Journal littéraire général'' was supposed to be published to fulfill that goal, but never was. Humanist scholar
Denis de Sallo Denis de Sallo, Sieur de la Coudraye (1626May 14, 1669) was a French writer and lawyer from Paris, known as the founder of the first French, and European literary and scientific journal - the ''Journal des sçavans'' (later renamed ''Journal des sav ...
(under the
pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
"Sieur de Hédouville") and printer Jean Cusson took Mazerai's idea, and obtained a
royal privilege A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
from
King Louis XIV Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was List of French monarchs, King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the Li ...
on 8 August 1664 to establish the ''
Journal des sçavans The ''Journal des sçavans'' (later renamed ''Journal des savans'' and then ''Journal des savants,'' lit. ''Journal of the Learned''), established by Denis de Sallo, is the earliest academic journal published in Europe. It is thought to be the ear ...
''. The journal's first issue was published on 5 January 1665. It was aimed at people of letters, and had four main objectives:Histoire du Journal des Savants
, p. 1-2
# review newly published major European books, # publish the
obituaries An obituary ( obit for short) is an article about a recently deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on positive aspects of the subject's life, this is not always the case. Ac ...
of famous people, # report on discoveries in
arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both hi ...
and
science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
, and # report on the
proceedings In academia and librarianship, conference proceedings is a collection of academic papers published in the context of an academic conference or workshop. Conference proceedings typically contain the contributions made by researchers at the confere ...
and
censure A censure is an expression of strong disapproval or harsh criticism. In parliamentary procedure, it is a debatable main motion that could be adopted by a majority vote. Among the forms that it can take are a stern rebuke by a legislature, a spir ...
s of both
secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...
and
ecclesiastical court An ecclesiastical court, also called court Christian or court spiritual, is any of certain courts having jurisdiction mainly in spiritual or religious matters. In the Middle Ages, these courts had much wider powers in many areas of Europe than be ...
s, as well as those of Universities both in France and outside. Soon after, the
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
established
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society'' is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society. In its earliest days, it was a private venture of the Royal Society's secretary. It was established in 1665, making it the first journa ...
in March 1665, and the
Académie des Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at the ...
established the ''
Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences ''Mémoires'' (''Memories'') is an artist's book made by the French social critic Guy Debord in collaboration with the Danish artist Asger Jorn. Its last page mentions that it was printed in 1959, however, it was printed in December 1958. This p ...
'' in 1666, which more strongly focused on scientific communications. By the end of the 18th century, nearly 500 such periodicals had been published, the vast majority coming from
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
(304 periodicals),
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
(53), and
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
(34). Several of those publications, however, and in particular the German journals, tended to be short-lived (under 5 years). A.J. Meadows has estimated the proliferation of journal to reach 10,000 journals in 1950, and 71,000 in 1987. However, Michael Mabe warns that the estimates will vary depending on the definition of what exactly counts as a scholarly publication, but that the growth rate has been "remarkably consistent over time", with an average rate of 3.46% per year from 1800 to 2003. In 1733, ''
Medical Essays and Observations Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
'' was established by the
Medical Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...
as the first fully
peer-review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
ed journal. Peer review was introduced as an attempt to increase the quality and pertinence of submissions. Other important events in the history of academic journals include the establishment of ''
Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...
'' (1869) and ''
Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
'' (1880), the establishment of ''
Postmodern Culture ''Postmodern Culture'' is an electronic academic journal established in 1990. It is the result of an early experiment in electronic content delivery via the Internet. The journal publishes commentary and criticism on a wide range of concerns includ ...
'' in 1990 as the first
online-only journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and d ...
, the foundation of
arXiv arXiv (pronounced "archive"—the X represents the Greek letter chi ⟨χ⟩) is an open-access repository of electronic preprints and postprints (known as e-prints) approved for posting after moderation, but not peer review. It consists of ...
in 1991 for the dissemination of
preprint In academic publishing, a preprint is a version of a scholarly or scientific paper that precedes formal peer review and publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly or scientific journal. The preprint may be available, often as a non-typeset versio ...
s to be discussed prior to publication in a journal, and the establishment of '' PLOS One'' in 2006 as the first
megajournal A mega journal (also mega-journal and megajournal) is a peer-reviewed academic journal, academic open access journal designed to be much larger than a traditional journal by exercising low selectivity among accepted articles. It was pioneered by ''P ...
.


Scholarly articles

There are two kinds of article or paper submissions in
academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
: solicited, where an individual has been invited to submit work either through direct contact or through a general submissions call, and unsolicited, where an individual submits a work for potential publication without directly being asked to do so. Upon receipt of a submitted article, editors at the journal determine whether to reject the submission outright or begin the process of
peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
. In the latter case, the submission becomes subject to review by outside scholars of the editor's choosing who typically remain anonymous. The number of these peer reviewers (or "referees") varies according to each journal's editorial practice – typically, no fewer than two, though sometimes three or more, experts in the subject matter of the article produce reports upon the content, style, and other factors, which inform the editors' publication decisions. Though these reports are generally confidential, some journals and publishers also practice
public peer review Open peer review is the various possible modifications of the traditional scholarly peer review process. The three most common modifications to which the term is applied are: # Open identities: Authors and reviewers are aware of each other's ident ...
. The editors either choose to reject the article, ask for a revision and resubmission, or accept the article for publication. Even accepted articles are often subjected to further (sometimes considerable) editing by journal editorial staff before they appear in print. The peer review can take from several weeks to several months.


Reviewing


Review articles

Review articles, also called "reviews of progress," are checks on the research published in journals. Some journals are devoted entirely to review articles, some contain a few in each issue, and others do not publish review articles. Such reviews often cover the research from the preceding year, some for longer or shorter terms; some are devoted to specific topics, some to general surveys. Some reviews are enumerative, listing all significant articles in a given subject; others are selective, including only what they think worthwhile. Yet others are evaluative, judging the state of progress in the subject field. Some journals are published in series, each covering a complete subject field year, or covering specific fields through several years. Unlike original research articles, review articles tend to be solicited or "peer-invited" submissions, often planned years in advance, which may themselves go through a peer-review process once received. They are typically relied upon by students beginning a study in a given field, or for current awareness of those already in the field.


Book reviews

Reviews of scholarly books are checks upon the research books published by scholars; unlike articles, book reviews tend to be solicited. Journals typically have a separate book review editor determining which new books to review and by whom. If an outside scholar accepts the book review editor's request for a book review, he or she generally receives a free copy of the book from the journal in exchange for a timely review. Publishers send books to book review editors in the hope that their books will be reviewed. The length and depth of research book reviews varies much from journal to journal, as does the extent of textbook and trade book review.


Prestige and ranking

An
academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
journal's prestige is established over time, and can reflect many factors, some but not all of which are expressible quantitatively. In each
academic discipline An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...
, some journals receive a high number of submissions and opt to restrict how many they publish, keeping the
acceptance rate Acceptance in human psychology is a person's assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it or protest it. The concept is close in meaning to ...
low. Size or prestige are not a guarantee of reliability. In the
natural sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...
and in the
social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soci ...
, the
impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as i ...
is an established proxy, measuring the number of later articles citing articles already published in the journal. There are other quantitative measures of prestige, such as the overall number of citations, how quickly articles are cited, and the average "
half-life Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable ato ...
" of articles.
Clarivate Analytics Clarivate Plc is a British-American publicly traded analytics company that operates a collection of subscription-based services, in the areas of bibliometrics and scientometrics; business / market intelligence, and competitive profiling for p ...
' ''
Journal Citation Reports ''Journal Citation Reports'' (''JCR'') is an annual publicationby Clarivate Analytics (previously the intellectual property of Thomson Reuters). It has been integrated with the Web of Science and is accessed from the Web of Science-Core Collect ...
'', which among other features, computes an
impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as i ...
for academic journals, draws data for computation from the
Science Citation Index Expanded The Science Citation Index Expanded – previously entitled Science Citation Index – is a citation index originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and created by Eugene Garfield. It was officially launched in 1964 and ...
(for natural science journals), and from the
Social Sciences Citation Index The Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) is a commercial citation index product of Clarivate Analytics. It was originally developed by the Institute for Scientific Information from the Science Citation Index. The Social Sciences Citation Index is ...
(for social science journals). Several other metrics are also used, including the
SCImago Journal Rank The SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) indicator is a measure of the prestige of scholarly journals that accounts for both the number of citations received by a journal and the prestige of the journals where the citations come from. Rationale Citati ...
,
CiteScore CiteScore (CS) of an academic journal is a measure reflecting the yearly average number of citations to recent articles published in that journal. This journal evaluation metric was launched in December 2016 by Elsevier as an alternative to the ge ...
,
Eigenfactor The Eigenfactor score, developed by Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom at the University of Washington, is a rating of the total importance of a scientific journal. Journals are rated according to the number of incoming citations, with citations from h ...
, and
Altmetrics In scholarly and scientific publishing, altmetrics are non-traditional bibliometrics proposed as an alternative or complement to more traditional citation impact metrics, such as impact factor and ''h''-index. The term altmetrics was proposed in ...
. In the
Anglo-American Anglo-Americans are people who are English-speaking inhabitants of Anglo-America. It typically refers to the nations and ethnic groups in the Americas that speak English as a native language, making up the majority of people in the world who spe ...
humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...
, there is no tradition (as there is in the sciences) of giving impact-factors that could be used in establishing a journal's prestige. Recent moves have been made by the European Science Foundation (ESF) to change the situation, resulting in the publication of preliminary lists for the
ranking A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than" or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of o ...
of academic journals in the humanities. These rankings have been severely criticized, notably by history and sociology of science British journals that have published a common editorial entitled "Journals under Threat." Though it did not prevent ESF and some national organizations from proposing
journal ranking Journal ranking is widely used in academic circles in the evaluation of an academic journal's impact and quality. Journal rankings are intended to reflect the place of a journal within its field, the relative difficulty of being published in that ...
s, it largely prevented their use as evaluation tools. In some disciplines such as
knowledge management Knowledge management (KM) is the collection of methods relating to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieve organisational objectives by making ...
/
intellectual capital Intellectual capital is the result of mental processes that form a set of intangible objects that can be used in economic activity and bring income to its owner (organization), covering the competencies of its people ( human capital), the value rela ...
, the lack of a well-established journal ranking system is perceived by academics as "a major obstacle on the way to tenure, promotion and achievement recognition". Conversely, a significant number of scientists and organizations consider the pursuit of
impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as i ...
calculations as inimical to the goals of science, and have signed the
San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) intends to halt the practice of correlating the journal impact factor to the merits of a specific scientist's contributions. Also according to this statement, this practice creates bias ...
to limit its use. The categorization of journal prestige in some subjects has been attempted, typically using letters to rank their academic world importance. Three categories of techniques have developed to assess journal quality and create journal rankings: * stated preference; * revealed preference; and * publication power approaches


Costs

Many academic journals are
subsidized A subsidy or government incentive is a form of financial aid or support extended to an economic sector (business, or individual) generally with the aim of promoting economic and social policy. Although commonly extended from the government, the ter ...
by universities or professional organizations, and do not exist to make a profit. However, they often accept advertising, page and image charges from authors to pay for production costs. On the other hand, some journals are produced by commercial publishers who do make a profit by charging subscriptions to individuals and libraries. They may also sell all of their journals in discipline-specific collections or a variety of other packages. Journal editors tend to have other professional responsibilities, most often as teaching professors. In the case of the largest journals, there are paid staff assisting in the editing. The production of the journals is almost always done by publisher-paid staff. Humanities and social science academic journals are usually subsidized by universities or professional organization. The cost and value proposition of subscription to academic journals is being continuously re-assessed by institutions worldwide. In the context of the big deal cancellations by several library systems in the world, data analysis tools like
Unpaywall Journals OurResearch, formerly known as ImpactStory, is a nonprofit organization which creates and distributes tools and services for libraries, institutions and researchers. The organization follows open practices with their data (to the extent allowed by ...
are used by libraries to estimate the specific cost and value of the various options: libraries can avoid subscriptions for materials already served by instant
open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
via
open archive An open repository or open-access repository is a digital platform that holds research output and provides free, immediate and permanent access to research results for anyone to use, download and distribute. To facilitate open access such repositori ...
s like PubMed Central.


New developments

The
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
has revolutionized the production of, and access to, academic journals, with their contents available online via services subscribed to by
academic libraries An academic library is a library that is attached to a higher education institution and serves two complementary purposes: to support the curriculum and the research of the university faculty and students. It is unknown how many academic librar ...
. Individual articles are subject-indexed in databases such as
Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...
. Some of the smallest, most specialized journals are prepared in-house, by an academic department, and published only online – such form of publication has sometimes been in the blog format though some, like the
open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
journal
Internet Archaeology ''Internet Archaeology'' is an academic journal and one of the first fully peer-reviewed electronic journals covering archaeology. It was established in 1996. The journal was part of the eLIb project's electronic journals. The journal is produce ...
, use the medium to embed searchable datasets, 3D models, and interactive mapping. Currently, there is a movement in higher education encouraging
open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
, either via
self archiving Self-archiving is the act of (the author's) depositing a free copy of an electronic document online in order to provide open access to it. The term usually refers to the self-archiving of peer-reviewed research journal and conference articles, as ...
, whereby the author deposits a paper in a disciplinary or
institutional repository An institutional repository is an archive for collecting, preserving, and disseminating digital copies of the intellectual output of an institution, particularly a research institution. Academics also utilize their IRs for archiving published work ...
where it can be searched for and read, or via publishing it in a free
open access journal Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
, which does not charge for
subscriptions The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century, an ...
, being either subsidized or financed by a
publication fee An article processing charge (APC), also known as a publication fee, is a fee which is sometimes charged to authors. Most commonly, it is involved in making a work available as open access (OA), in either a full OA journal or in a hybrid journal. ...
. Given the goal of sharing scientific research to speed advances, open access has affected science journals more than humanities journals. Commercial publishers are experimenting with open access models, but are trying to protect their subscription revenues. The much lower entry cost of on-line publishing has also raised concerns of an increase in publication of "junk" journals with lower publishing standards. These journals, often with names chosen as similar to well-established publications, solicit articles via e-mail and then charge the author to publish an article, often with no sign of actual review.
Jeffrey Beall Jeffrey Beall is an American librarian and library scientist, best known for drawing attention to "predatory open access publishing", a term he coined, and for creating what is now widely known as Beall's list, a list of potentially predatory op ...
, a research librarian at the
University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Co ...
, has compiled a list of what he considers to be "potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers"; the list numbered over 300 journals as of April 2013, but he estimates that there may be thousands. The
OMICS Publishing Group OMICS Publishing Group is a predatory publisher of open access academic journals. It started publishing its first journal in 2008. By 2015, it claimed over 700 journals, although about half of them were defunct. Its subsidiaries and brands in ...
, which publishes a number of the journals on this list, has threatened to sue Beall. Some academic journals use the
registered report Preregistration is the practice of registering the hypotheses, methods, and/or analyses of a scientific study before it is conducted. This can include analyzing primary data or secondary data. Clinical trial registration is similar, although it may ...
format, which aims to counteract issues such as
data dredging Data dredging (also known as data snooping or ''p''-hacking) is the misuse of data analysis to find patterns in data that can be presented as statistically significant, thus dramatically increasing and understating the risk of false positives. ...
and hypothesizing after the results are known. For example, ''
Nature Human Behaviour ''Nature Human Behaviour'' is a monthly multidisciplinary online-only peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of human behaviour. It was established in January 2017 and is published by Springer Nature Publishing. The editor-in-chief ...
'' has adopted the registered report format, as it "shift the emphasis from the results of research to the questions that guide the research and the methods used to answer them". The ''
European Journal of Personality The ''European Journal of Personality'' (EJP) is the official bimonthly academic journal of the European Association of Personality Psychology covering research on personality, published by SAGE Publishing. According to citation reports based on ...
'' defines this format: "In a registered report, authors create a study proposal that includes theoretical and empirical background, research questions/hypotheses, and pilot data (if available). Upon submission, this proposal will then be reviewed prior to data collection, and if accepted, the paper resulting from this peer-reviewed procedure will be published, regardless of the study outcomes."


Electronic journals

Some journals are ''
born digital ''Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives'' is a book by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser exploring the consequences of the wide availability of internet connectivity to the first generation of people born to it, whom Palfr ...
'', such as the ''
Electronic Journal of Combinatorics The ''Electronic Journal of Combinatorics'' is a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal covering research in combinatorial mathematics. The journal was established in 1994 by Herbert Wilf (University of Pennsylvania) and Neil Calkin (Georgi ...
'', in that they are solely published on the web and in a digital format. Most electronic journals originated as print journals, which subsequently evolved to have an electronic version, while still maintaining a print component, while others eventually become electronic-only. An e-journal closely resembles a print journal in structure: there is a table of contents which lists the articles, and many electronic journals still use a volume/issue model, although some titles now publish on a continuous basis. Online journal articles are a specialized form of
electronic document An electronic document is any electronic media content (other than computer programs or system files) that is intended to be used in either an electronic form or as printed output. Originally, any computer data were considered as something inter ...
: they have the purpose of providing material for academic
research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...
and study, and they are formatted approximately like journal articles in traditional printed journals. Often a journal article will be available for download in two formats - as a PDF and in HTML format, although other electronic file types are often supported for supplementary material. Articles are indexed in
bibliographic databases A bibliographic database is a database of bibliographic records, an organized digital collection of references to published literature, including journal and newspaper articles, conference proceedings, reports, government and legal publications, p ...
, as well as by search engines. E-journals allow new types on content to be included in journals, for example video material, or the data sets on which research has been based. With the growth and development of the Internet, there has been a growth in the number of new journals, especially in those that exist as digital publications only. A subset of these journals exist as Open Access titles, meaning that they are free to access for all, and have
Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
licences which permit the reproduction of content in different ways. High quality
open access journals Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
are listed in
Directory of Open Access Journals The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a website that hosts a community-curated list of open access journals, maintained by Infrastructure Services for Open Access (IS4OA). It was launched in 2003 with 300 open access journals. The proje ...
. Most however continue to exist as subscription journals, for which libraries, organisations and individuals purchase access.


Lists

The largest database providing detailed information about journals is Ulrichs Global Serials Directory. Other databases providing detailed information about journals are the Modern Language Association Directory of Periodicals and
Genamics JournalSeek JournalSeek is an online database covering academic journals. It includes journals published by over 5400 publishers. The database includes journal descriptions and links to the journals' homepages. See also * List of academic databases and search ...
. Journal hosting websites like
Project MUSE Project MUSE, a non-profit collaboration between libraries and publishers, is an online database of peer-reviewed academic journals and electronic books. Project MUSE contains digital humanities and social science content from over 250 university ...
,
JSTOR JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...
,
Pubmed PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintain the ...
,
Ingenta Web of Science Ingenta is a provider of content services for the publishing industry, based in Oxford in the United Kingdom. Customers include both academic and trade publishers as well as information providers. Ingenta plc is listed on the Alternative Investm ...
, and
Informaworld Informa plc is a British publishing, business intelligence, and exhibitions group based in London, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It has offices in 43 countries and around 11,00 ...
also provide journal lists. Some sites evaluate journals, providing information such as how long a journal takes to review articles and what types of articles it publishes.


See also


Explanatory notes


References


Further reading

* * * * * * * *


External links

*
ERIH 'Initial' lists
European Science Foundation The European Science Foundation (ESF) is an association of 11 member organizations devoted to scientific research in 8 European countries. ESF is an independent, non-governmental, non-profit organisation that promotes the highest quality science ...

JournalSeek – A Searchable Database of Online Scholarly Journals

Master Journal List
(Thomson Reuters) – a list of selected, and notable academic journals in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences.
Links to electronic journals

JURN directory of Arts & Humanities ejournals


an

''Academic Writing''. Dennis G. Jerz. Seton Hill University. 2001.
Peer reviewed articles
San Diego State University San Diego State University (SDSU) is a public research university in San Diego, California. Founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, it is the third-oldest university and southernmost in the 23-member California State University (CSU) system ...
.
Directory of Open Access Journals
{{Authority control Academic publishing Peer review Scholarly communication